Lessons and challenges from software quality assessment: The case of space systems software

Software development activities have continued to be plagued by a number of problems even with the availability of so many esoteric software technologies and paradigms such as object oriented development, etc.Several studies can be traced back to the software processes adopted. Other contributing factors include lack of knowledge of available systems standards, tools and techniques employed by system practitioners. This paper presents lessons and challenges gained over the last 10 years of experience as software system administrator as well as lecturers in the computer science department. Over this period of time, we have managed a number of in-house and purchased project software amongst them are banking, airtime billing, human resource, result computation etc. We discussed these lessons and challenges across two measurable  characteristics namely quality of design (life cycle stages) and quality of conformance. Finally, we also recommended the lessons and challenges from software quality management for space system software

Voice recognition system for Massey University Smarthouse : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Information Engineering at Massey University

The concept of a smarthouse aims to integrate technology into houses to a level where most daily tasks are automated and to provide comfort, safety and entertainment to the house residents. The concept is mainly aimed at the elderly population to improve their quality of life. In order to maintain a natural medium of communication, the house employs a speech recognition system capable of analysing spoken language, and extracting commands from it. This project focuses on the development and evaluation of a windows application developed with a high level programming language which incorporates speech recognition technology by utilising a commercial speech recognition engine. The speech recognition system acts as a hub within the Smarthouse to receive and delegate user commands to different switching and control systems. Initial trails were built using Dragon Naturally Speaking as the recognition engine. However that proved inappropriate for use in the Smarthouse project as it is speaker dependent and requires each user to train it with his/her own voice. The application now utilizes the Microsoft Speech Application Programming Interface (SAPI), a software layer which sits between applications and speech engines and the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine, which is freely distributed with some Microsoft products. Although Dragon Naturally Speaking offers better recognition for dictation, MS engine can be optimized using Context Free Grammar (CFG) to give enhanced recognition in the intended application. The application is designed to be speaker independent and can handle continuous speech. It connects to a database oriented expert system to carry out full conversations with the users. Audible prompts and confirmations are achieved through speech synthesis using any SAPI compliant text to speech engine. Other developments focused on designing a telephony system using Microsoft Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI). This allows the house to be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world. House residents will be able to call their house from any part of the world and regardless of their location, the house will be able to respond to and fulfil their commands

Development of Data Acquisition and Control Software for Neutron Radiography Facility at Serpong, Indonesia

A system for data acquisition and control software for the neutron radiography facility at Serpong has been developed. The software was developed to replace the previously existing control software which was no longer used due to problems on its computer hardware. Visual Basic running under Microsoft Windows operating system was used in developing the new software. In the hardware side, the film grabber and the motor driver were replaced. In the new system, the film grabber which was used to capture the image in the old system is replaced with a programmable CCD camera. The motor driver which was used to control the camera in two directions has been replaced with a four-direction motor driver. The software is capable of displaying the images in a real time mode and record the images in the hard disk of a personal computer. To obtain optimal image quality, the software processes the captured images by performing temperature adjustment, camera exposure time adjustment, and integration of the captured image in a certain frame numbers. The software is capable of taking a number of snapshots at a certain time interval. For neutron tomography purposes, the software takes the snapshots automatically at a sample position in line with the stepping movement of the rotating sample table. The snapshots were saved in a picture format and a numeric format for further processing. The software has been successfully tested for real time method and tomography reconstruction. The data captured by using this software has been verified using both commercial and in-house computed tomography software. Received: 16 January 2013; Revised: 20 August 2013; Accepted: 23 August 201

Proposal and Validation of Usability Model for Component Based Software System

Increasing demand of rapid and cost effective development of software system has increased the demand of Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE). In CBSE, software system is developed by using existing components. These components can be in-house components or third party components. To develop a Component Based Software System (CBSS), it is important to select the suitable component in such a manner that the components of the software system do not affect each other. To increase the acceptance of the CBSS among the users and the market value of the software industries, it is important to increase the usability of the CBSS. Several usability models have been proposed for traditional and object-oriented software system (OOSS), but there is no usability model for CBSS. Existing traditional and object-oriented models can’t be perfectly suitable for CBSS because of the unique characteristics of the components. This paper presents a usability model (UMCBSS) for CBSS. The proposed usability model is based on most significant usability factors. These factors are analysed from CBSS quality models. With the help of proposed model, usability is evaluated by using two different techniques i.e., centroid method and bisector method in MATLAB. Experimental results are also validated by using Center of Gravity (COG) and Mean-Max method. With the help of the proposed model, developers of the CBSS will be able to measure the usability of CBSS and to remove the usability flaws from the software system

Quality assurance in stereotactic radiosurgery/radiotherapy according to DIN 6875-1

The new DIN (' Deutsche Industrie- Norm') 6875- 1, which is currently being finalised, deals with quality assurance ( QA) criteria and tests methods for linear accelerator and Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery/ radiotherapy including treatment planning, stereotactic frame and stereotactic imaging and a system test to check the whole chain of uncertainties. Our existing QA program, based on dedicated phantoms and test procedures, has been refined to fulfill the demands of this new DIN. The radiological and mechanical isocentre corresponded within 0.2 mm and the measured 50% isodose lines were in agreement with the calculated ones within less than 0.5 mm. The measured absorbed dose was within 3%. The resultant output factors measured for the 14-, 8- and 4- mm collimator helmet were 0.9870 +/- 0.0086, 0.9578 +/- 0.0057 and 0.8741 +/- 0.0202, respectively. For 170 consecutive tests, the mean geometrical accuracy was 0.48 +/- 0.23 mm. Besides QA phantoms and analysis software developed in- house, the use of commercially available tools facilitated the QA according to the DIN 6875- 1 with which our results complied. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Using CAN to retrofit houses for quadriplegic people

DETIThis paper describes the B-Live® system targetted to automate house appliances for severely impaired people, in particular quadriplegic. This system has been developed at Micro I/O for enhancing the quality of life and the independence of its potential users. The envisaged application is the retrofitting of common dwellings. The B-Live system is described and details on its software, hardware and CAN-based communications architecture are provided. A survey of the supported appliances and interfaces is presented as well as a description of the B-live configuration and operation procedures. The adequacy of the B-Live system to improve the autonomy of the envisaged users was informally evaluated by C5 and C6 patients at a demonstration house located in the CMRRC Rovisco Pais, a rehabilitation center near Aveiro, in Portugal. The conclusion is that the system has a short learning curve and can cope with the requirements of its potential users. The use of CAN in this application opens the possibility to include safety critical real-time systems in the BLive system. This is the case of the monitoring of the ventilator used for quadriplegic people that require breath assistance

Development of Data Acquisition and Control Software for Neutron Radiography Facility at Serpong, Indonesia

A system for data acquisition and control software for the neutron radiography facility at Serpong has been developed. The software was developed to replace the previously existing control software which was no longer used due to problems on its computer hardware. Visual Basic running under Microsoft Windows operating system was used in developing the new software. In the hardware side, the film grabber and the motor driver were replaced. In the new system, the film grabber which was used to capture the image in the old system is replaced with a programmable CCD camera. The motor driver which was used to control the camera in two directions has been replaced with a four-direction motor driver. The software is capable of displaying the images in a real time mode and record the images in the hard disk of a personal computer. To obtain optimal image quality, the software processes the captured images by performing temperature adjustment, camera exposure time adjustment, and integration of the captured image in a certain frame numbers. The software is capable of taking a number of snapshots at a certain time interval. For neutron tomography purposes, the software takes the snapshots automatically at a sample position in line with the stepping movement of the rotating sample table. The snapshots were saved in a picture format and a numeric format for further processing. The software has been successfully tested for real time method and tomography reconstruction. The data captured by using this software has been verified using both commercial and in-house computed tomography software. Received: 16 January 2013; Revised: 20 August 2013; Accepted: 23 August 201

RDD-100 and the systems engineering process

An effective systems engineering approach applied through the project life cycle can help Langley produce a better product. This paper demonstrates how an enhanced systems engineering process for in-house flight projects assures that each system will achieve its goals with quality performance and within planned budgets and schedules. This paper also describes how the systems engineering process can be used in combination with available software tools

Advanced Solar Technologies in Buildings

This paper presents the design and dynamic modelling of a hybrid power system for a house in Nigeria. Thermal modelling of the house under consideration is carried out using BEopt software to accurately study the heat loss through the walls, windows, doors, and roof of the house. The analysis of this thermal model is used to determine hourly load data. Design of an optimum hybrid power system for the house is done with HOMER Pro software. The hybrid power system is made up of a diesel generator and a stand-alone PV system. The proposed PV system consists of PV arrays, DC–DC boost converter, MPPT controller, single-phase full-bridge inverter, inverter voltage mode controller (PI controller), and single-phase step-up transformer. Dynamic simulation of the proposed PV system component of the hybrid power system is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink environment to study the power quality, harmonics, load impact, voltage transients, etc. of the system, and the simulation results are presented in the paper

Telescience Resource Kit Software Lifecycle

The challenge of a global operations capability led to the Telescience Resource Kit (TReK) project, an in-house software development project of the Mission Operations Laboratory (MOL) at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The TReK system is being developed as an inexpensive comprehensive personal computer- (PC-) based ground support system that can be used by payload users from their home sites to interact with their payloads on board the International Space Station (ISS). The TReK project is currently using a combination of the spiral lifecycle model and the incremental lifecycle model. As with any software development project, there are four activities that can be very time consuming: Software design and development, project documentation, testing, and umbrella activities, such as quality assurance and configuration management. In order to produce a quality product, it is critical that each of these activities receive the appropriate amount of attention. For TReK, the challenge was to lay out a lifecycle and project plan that provides full support for these activities, is flexible, provides a way to deal with changing risks, can accommodate unknowns, and can respond to changes in the environment quickly. This paper will provide an overview of the TReK lifecycle, a description of the project's environment, and a general overview of project activities